The art stars of tomorrow? Four of my favorite artists from the Slade School graduation show in London

Almost a year has passed since I last wrote this column. Around this time, I got married, moved house, and spent a lot of time on Facebook Marketplace buying furniture. I also looked at a lot of art, but for some reason didn’t feel compelled to write about what I saw.

This may be because nowadays many exhibitions come with long texts and press briefings. The significance of the artist, the importance of his work, the stature of the curator, all of this is documented in intelligent prose. If you need help making up your mind, here’s an interview with the artist, or even better, here’s what someone was willing to pay at auction for their work. If it was over a million dollars, then the work must be good. Case closed.

Last week I went to an exhibit, and for the first time in months, I had absolutely no idea who would be exhibited. If you Googled most artists, very little would come up. No reviews, no gushing profiles, no inclusions in “significant collections”, nothing to sway my perception of the work but the work itself.

When I entered the exhibition, there was no artist statement, no curator statement, no statement at all. There was only the name of the artist and the title of the work. Do what you want with it.

Reader, if you haven’t guessed where I was yet, I attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London’s MA/MFA Degree Exhibition last week (June 10-18). I saw a lot of art. Room after art room. Paintings, sculptures, sound installations bear witness to the scale and versatility of the promotion.

Some things I liked, some things I didn’t like, some things I didn’t care about. Some things excited me, some confused me, and some I forgot about seconds after seeing them. As I wandered from room to room, it was a reminder of the subjective nature of art. Worth watching if it’s worth watching for me. There is no good taste that I aspire to. It’s just my taste.

Here are four of my favorite artists out of all the work I’ve seen. They could become the art stars of the future. They can work in fashion, technology or product design for the next four years. Who knows?

The first is Antonia Caicedo Holguinincluding oil painting on canvas, The disappearance of the sun, is a show stopper. The palette is a dreamy blue green, the brushstrokes are romantic, and the scene is pastoral. In the foreground, a couple is dancing, their heads turned towards the viewer. In the background, a woman is brushing her hair, someone is checking her phone, and at the edge of the painting, a figure with closed eyes is listening to music coming out of large headphones. Why have all these people been brought together on this web? And why are they so absorbed in their lives, ignoring the beauty around them? Perhaps a commentary on the modern condition.

Next is Hannah Ouzorincluding painting all that remains is equally striking. A little girl sits on a grassy embankment, her face lowered in mourning. She might mourn the state of the world or maybe just mourn a lost toy. There’s a lot of brown in the painting – the brown of the girl’s skin, the brown of the earth, the bluish brown of an apocalyptic sky with skeleton trees in the background. There is a dreamlike quality to the piece. It’s not a nightmare, but it’s not a pleasant dream either.

Down in the basement I came across the work of Ty Locke. In one piece, a surreal lampshade bathed in violet light seems to float in the air. Its acorns curl to the ground and spread out on the ground like the legs of a centipede. It’s striking, it’s weird, it’s Salvador Dalí in 3D and I can’t stop looking at it. It reminds me of confinement, being incarcerated with everyday objects in our homes, staring at them until they turn into magical, menacing objects.

Finally, Lydia Merrett. All of her exhibited paintings are of women in motion. Not women prodigies, not stylized and unachievable female ideals, but strong women nonetheless. One figure is in the middle of the wheel while another dips from a board. The piece that stands out for me is called After the glow. Three women run in a line, their arms flapping in the air. Their faces are blurred, stern and bare. There is nothing pretty about their expressions. There is no male gaze here. And yet they are imbued with a hue of sunrise, golden and glowing. They run and they are free.

There are many big names exhibiting in London this summer, and like my art-loving friends, I will be attending gallery openings and museum exhibitions. I will attend artist conferences and buy the catalog if there is one. But it was a pleasure to catch a glimpse of these young artists before a few of them were wrapped up and selected for the ‘art world’, this strange, tilted planet.